here is a question. The 160 BPM 16th note runs seem doable, but the triplets are beyond my speed right now. I normally practice 16th notes with the metronome, with the triplets being 6 notes per beat what would be the equivalent 16th notes with only 4 notes per beat be in BPM ? Hopefully this question makes sense. In simpler terms if I were playing 4 notes per beat 16th notes what BPM would I be at when doing the triplet run at the same tempo you are doing here ?

Man that is just insane! Since you've come to GMC you've quickly become one of my favourite instructors.

Just a couple of quick questions:

1. What guitar are you using this time? (All your guitars look and sound insane!) 2. Are you using your POD again? And if I were to get a POD X3 could I get this sound, because it is amazing!

Thanks again!

Thanks for the kind words, to answer your questions:

1. I am using a Carvin C66 guitar, which I love for shredding because of its nice Low Action

2. Yes I am using the POD XT Pro, have never tried the X3, I assume you could get a similar sound with the X3, To get that sound I came up with a preset of my own, none of the pre-programmed presets gave a sound I was pleased with. Keep in mind that the sound will also depend on the guitar.

here is a question. The 160 BPM 16th note runs seem doable, but the triplets are beyond my speed right now. I normally practice 16th notes with the metronome, with the triplets being 6 notes per beat what would be the equivalent 16th notes with only 4 notes per beat be in BPM ? Hopefully this question makes sense. In simpler terms if I were playing 4 notes per beat 16th notes what BPM would I be at when doing the triplet run at the same tempo you are doing here ?

I think I understand, you could calculate it by knowing how many notes per second you are playing, and take that as reference, for instance we know that if we were at 60 bpm, and you played quarter notes, you would be playing a note per second, if you played 16th notes at 60 bpm you would be playing 4 notes per second, if it was 16th triplets it would be 6 notes per second. See what I am getting at, so to calculate how many notes per second you are playing take the bpm you are playing at divide by 60 and multiply by the number of notes per beat

Calculate how many notes per second you are playing at 160bpm 6 notes per beat

160/60 * 6 = 16 notes per second

Calculate how many notes per second you are playing at 160 bpm 4 notes per beat

At 160bpm is just impossible for me. But I want to learn it so I guess I have to start slow.

Yes 160 bpm is insanely fast, I have a hard time practicing at this speed, but this is the point practice harder to play better, believe me if you get anywhere above 120 bpm that is already shred, and when played accurately it will sound amazing. If I was to make a song out of this I would bring it down to 130-140, maybe 150 bpm after watching Muris, but not 160.

At 160 I would stick to quintuplets like the string skipping part, or small 16th note triplet burst, there are little tricks that I use to shred when a song is anywhere between 150-170 and 16th notes don't feel fast enough, maybe later I will a lesson on that.

Hi - Amazing lesson!!
When you're playing this kind of stuff, where does your picking tend to 'pivot' from? (If you see waht I mean). I took lessons once from a very good player, who suggested that 'moving' the thumb and forefinger was ok for slow picking (obvious really), 'pivoting' from the wrist would get you into intermediate speeds, and pivoting at the elbow, moving the whole forearm as one, would need to 'kick-in' for fast speeds. This seems to work, but you hardly seem to move your arm at all, and still acieve incredibly fast speeds. I've gradually come to understand that this kind of speed only comes with a lot of practice, and a knowledge of the particular scale being used, but would you say that my old teacher was correct in his 'elbow pivoting' theory?
Kevin

Hi - Amazing lesson!!When you're playing this kind of stuff, where does your picking tend to 'pivot' from? (If you see waht I mean). I took lessons once from a very good player, who suggested that 'moving' the thumb and forefinger was ok for slow picking (obvious really), 'pivoting' from the wrist would get you into intermediate speeds, and pivoting at the elbow, moving the whole forearm as one, would need to 'kick-in' for fast speeds. This seems to work, but you hardly seem to move your arm at all, and still acieve incredibly fast speeds. I've gradually come to understand that this kind of speed only comes with a lot of practice, and a knowledge of the particular scale being used, but would you say that my old teacher was correct in his 'elbow pivoting' theory?Kevin

I in my opinion your teacher was right, I do move the arm to achieve the fastest speeds, what happens is that I try not to move it to much, the less wide the movements are, the faster you will be able to play.

The problem when using the arm instead of the wrist or fingers is that you loose some control, however this is how I achieve the most speed. It will take some practice to do the right amount of arm/wrist/finger combination to play at incredible speeds with proper control.

Soon there will be another shred lesson where I take more time explaining my right hand technique, after making this lesson I realized questions like these would be asked, so I made another lesson and took the time to explain this.

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